2021 New Year’s Greetings from Shoei Yamana, President and CEO
Co-creation of value truly needed by society through the evolution of imaging

A Happy New Year to you all.

In 2020, with the Covid-19 outbreak and its worldwide expansion, we placed the highest priority on ensuring the health and safety of people working around the world and their families, focusing on preventing the spread of infections while closely monitoring risks. I would like to express my heartfelt respect and appreciation to the officials in governments and local governments in the global communities who continue to work on the frontline to prevent the spread of infections amid the prolonged worldwide pandemic, as well as to the healthcare professionals who are committed to diagnosing and treating patients day and night.

The Covid-19 pandemic has had a dramatic impact on the common sense of economic activities and social life, greatly changing our values, lifestyles, and working styles. Konica Minolta has thought things through, figuring out what we can do in these circumstances and will keep contributing to the evolution of human society by creating value that is truly needed by society at this very difficult time and going forward, such as "security and safety," "remote and non-face-to-face," and "personalization and decentralization," and by growing our businesses sustainably.

For safe and secure working styles, we provide support global customers for the implementation of working from home, which has rapidly grew in demand, as well as solutions for antibacterial coating to prevent contact infections in offices in Japan. Thermal cameras, which remotely screen body surface temperature, help reduce the risk of infections at various workplaces and support daily physical condition management. In the field of healthcare, we advanced the diagnosis of lungs and breathing through dynamic X-ray analysis technology. In Japan, we are beginning sales of a system for remote monitoring of vital data for mild and moderate admitted patients with the Covid-19 infection. It will contribute to enhancing work efficiency while protecting the safety of healthcare professionals.

In creating businesses that capture changes of the times, it is indispensable to cultivate proprietary technologies and create value with new ideas by combining advanced technologies in the world. Last year, Konica Minolta opened Innovation Garden OSAKA Center, a base for alliance and development of imaging IoT/AI technologies, in Takatsuki, northern Osaka. It came with the announcement of FORXAI, an imaging IoT platform based on our strengths in imaging technologies. In these new venues of open innovation, we will accelerate society's DX (digital transformation) through collaboration with customers and partners.

Human resources are the genuine source of our ability to implement initiatives aimed at creating new value. With each of more than 40,000 members enhancing their individual abilities and keeps shining, Konica Minolta will evolve into a highly profitable business under the new Medium-term Business Strategy “DX2022” and transform itself into a truly social issue-solving company. We will make Group-wide efforts to realize the re-defined management vision "Imaging to the People."

I offer my sincere wishes for your good health and happiness, and would greatly appreciate your continued support and encouragement for the Konica Minolta Group in 2021.

Shoei Yamana
President and CEO
Konica Minolta, Inc.